“Oh, come on.” He winked at me. I wanted to hide. I felt like a baby being coaxed out of the sulks. “You gonna let a kid tell you what’s good for her?”
Mom made a face. “How long is it?”
“Couple of hours. I’ll drive her home if that’s a problem. Unless you want to wait. We can even grab seats in the back in case you need to get her earlier than that.”
For one moment I determined to go. Jackson wanted me. I didn’t care which meeting it was. I wanted to go. I wanted to be one of the normal kids that other people, even popular people like Jackson, wanted to hang around. And this once maybe I wouldn’t be the kid leaning against the wall, watching everybody else who already had friends ignore me.
And then I saw Shannon. She stood near the hall watching us, her hand shading her eyes. She dropped her hand and flipped her hair back like she didn’t want me to know she’d noticed me at all. But I knew. And just as hard as I’d wanted to go, I now wanted to stay away.
Besides, I didn’t want my mom and Jackson arranging me like I was some little kid who hadn’t been invited to a birthday party and now needs Mommy to soothe her feelings.
I turned to tell Mom I wanted to go home. She stared at Jackson. Her hand clutched her purse strap over and over, her fingers pacing on the leather. It hit me. She wanted to get away as badly as I did. Only
she
needed a drink. If I let her go, she might forget to come back. I’d end up walking home, and everyone would know why.
“I said I don’t want to go.” I turned away.
“Why not? We’re just regular people, you know.” Jackson’s mouth had gone tight, and I figured he thought I was a snob or something, and I’d ticked him off. Just as well. He had Shannon, after all.
Instead of going back to her, though, he grabbed my arm and tugged me after him. I yanked away but he laughed. “Come on. I bet your mom has something to do. Just come, OK?”
He had no idea what Mom had to do. No idea. I looked back at her, but she just tipped her head toward him, like everything was fine with her. I bet it was. I wanted to cry, but instead I lifted my chin and pretended I wasn’t mad.
When we got to where Shannon waited he started to introduce us, but Shannon said, “We know each other.” She looked at me with no expression that I could read on her face. What could she be thinking? She’d gotten rid of me years ago, and now she had to deal with me all over again. I ducked my head.
“You do?” Jackson looked from me to her. His mouth did one of its funny little quirks, like he didn’t believe her.
“We used to be best friends,” Shannon said. It struck me that I hadn’t heard her voice in years, but it sounded the same, or softer, not as hateful as I pretended I always remembered. Jackson made a good buffer.
“So why not now?” Jackson asked. Some buffer. He finally let go of my arm, and I rubbed where he’d gripped it. It burned.
“It just happened,” Shannon said. She looked down then up again with a brilliant smile I didn’t recognize.
I stared at a poster that proclaimed “Believe!” and tried to get my face where I didn’t look as mad as I felt.
It just happened
, huh? She was the one who’d walked away from me. She hadn’t bothered to stand up for our friendship, so it was her fault. Hers and Mom’s.
“OK,” Jackson said, and I knew he was holding back on the questions. He’d ask them later, but he wouldn’t ask me. Why would he want my take on it?
We sat in the last row as Jackson had promised Mom, me on one side of him and Shannon on the other. In front of us sat a bunch of kids, and I recognized a few. Wallis and Miguel plopped down in the chairs right in front of me, scooching them over so I was pinned in, then Miguel turned and smacked Jackson’s knee.
“You’re not playing fair. There you sit with those two cute girls and look what I get.” He jerked his thumb at Wallis, who waggled his eyebrows and pretended to be coy. “Didn’t your mama teach you to share? C’mere, Shannon. Sit with me.”
Shannon gave a glare she must have practiced, and he shrugged. When he winked I jerked my chin down, mad that he’d made fun of me. I am not cute. I look like Mom. We’re both short, we have long, thin faces, dark, curly hair, and nice eyes, though I don’t suppose anyone notices mine because of my glasses.
Lucy’s voice boomed over the PA. “Let’s get started.”
Miguel turned around, and I straightened, though I didn’t look up.
Lucy called a couple of names and people straggled up. Someone had a guitar, and Lucy had a flute, and they started a song that was so different from what they’d played in church that I had to listen. It had a beat, and kids started clapping to it right away. I tried to find the rhythm, but I saw Shannon lean toward Jackson, whisper something, and glance around him at me. I shoved my hands into my pockets and acted like I’d known all along I was supposed to just listen. Like I’d never expected to belong.
After another song, Lucy started a prayer, something about letting the Spirit guide us and getting centered in Christ. I didn’t know what she meant, but I was sure that by the time she got to the “Amen” everyone else there was centered and guided and as holy as they could get without being dead and canonized.
Shannon whispered to Jackson again, and I felt my face burn. She might not have been talking about me, but I felt discussed anyhow.
Lucy hitched herself up onto the edge of the stage and sat facing the rest of us, swinging her legs. “I was thinking the other day,” she started, sounding like she was talking to a couple of good friends, totally sincere, “how some people give up on God.”
She let that sink in. I wondered if anyone there had ever done that, besides me.
They
were the people who went to church on Sundays.
They
got invited to join this group. When would God ever let
them
down?
“It’s like they look around, and say, ‘Well, He’s not doing it
my
way, so I’ll find someone else who will.’ You ever figure how smart
that
is?” She waited for the laughter to settle. “But think about it. We figure God isn’t doing what we want, so we give up on Him. He, however, never gives up on us. Not for anything. We can run away, tell Him we don’t want Him, reject Him over and over, and you know what? He’ll still be there every time we take a chance and look. He will never give up on us. He will love us forever.” She sounded like she believed this. I watched her, saw the way she smiled. I bet it was true.
For her. For them.
She went on talking like giving up was something you could take back.
“We’re the ones who give up.” Her voice soft as if she wanted to lead us somewhere, and didn’t want to frighten us off. “Miguel and Jennifer are handing out slips of paper and pencils. We’re going to write down one thing we’ve given up on, one thing we’ve quit trusting God for, and then we’ll take them outside and burn them.”
Miguel, his hands full of pencils, pulled a face at her. “What if we got more than one thing? What if we got like, twenty?”
Lucy smiled. “Then you get more paper.”
Someone else asked, “What’re we gonna burn it for?”
“Because these are things we need to let go of. We’re offering them up, letting God take over on them again. And our offering will be a sweet smelling sacrifice to God.” Now she sounded like the Old Testament.
“Father Tom isn’t gonna like this,” someone from the front said. “He don’t like people lighting no fires on church property.”
Lucy answered as soon as everyone stopped laughing. “We’re doing it in the barbecue, and Father Tom knows all about it.” She took her own slip of paper from Jennifer and bent over it.
“I hope she’s using lighter fluid,” I mumbled. I didn’t think I’d said it loud enough for anyone to hear, but Miguel, settling back on his chair in front of me, laughed. I slid down in my seat and refused to look at him.
I wished I had the guts to put something down on that tiny scrap. I’d need more paper than Miguel if I wrote anything, though.
I wanted to go home.
Miguel turned and caught my eye, just when I was thinking he’d forgotten my stupid comment. He waggled his eyebrows, and I wondered why. Was this a joke? Here I took it seriously, trying to act like I knew what was going on, and it wasn’t for real?
I glanced at Jackson. He twirled his pencil and frowned at his paper. Shannon wrote in familiar, curly letters. Maybe Miguel was the only one goofing off.
“I know what Miguel is asking for,” Wallis said in the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. “A date with Shannon.”
“He should’ve given that up a long time ago,” another boy said.
“Like I said.” Wallis looked at Miguel and chortled.
“In your dreams,” Shannon muttered.
Jackson laughed and took Shannon’s hand.
“I’m not dreaming ‘bout Shannon no more.” In one motion, Miguel lifted his chair and turned it around so he faced backward and stared at me. I ducked my head and pretended I had to roll the corner of my tiny piece of paper just right.
“Yeah, he’s just hoping for a date with anyone.”
“Shut up, Wallis,” Miguel said without looking at him. “Hey, Jackson, who’s your friend?”
Jackson introduced us.
I wanted to fall through the floor. I wanted to go home. I’d rather clean up Mom’s soured-booze-scented puke than sit there.
“I see you at school,” Wallis said. He leaned on his knee and shouldered Miguel out of the way. “You are one quiet kid, you know that?”
I rolled my eyes. “And you’re tall. You know
that
?”
It wasn’t all that funny, but the people around us laughed.
“My mama would like you.” This time Miguel’s voice was quiet, private. “She likes smart girls.”
I ignored him. I would not open my mouth again. I’d just walk into it if I did.
“Everybody ready? Let’s go.” Lucy grabbed a matchbook and led the way.
I scribbled a word on my paper, fast, the three letters slurring together so no one could read them, and squashed it into a pill-sized lump. I wanted this prayer, I wanted a chance to believe again, but if anyone said one more thing to me I’d take off. When I looked up, I saw Shannon and Jackson by the door. Jackson watched me, as though he could wait forever, if that’s how long it took me. I hurried past them onto the blacktopped yard, slivered between the building and a chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence drivers slowed as they passed us.
Maybe the others weren’t taking this prayer thing seriously because they didn’t have to. I knew other kids had alcoholic parents, but they wouldn’t be a part of a church group either, especially not one that the most popular kids in school also belonged to. Church groups didn’t want kids like me. After all, these kids belonged.
At the far side of the yard two lonely briquettes nestled in the center of a huge barbecue. As Lucy lit them, the chattering stopped. One by one, everybody dropped his or her slip of paper into the flames. I watched as each one made the sign of the cross as the paper curled up, blackened, and became ash.
I waited until last. I wanted to wait until everyone had gone back inside, but Lucy cupped my elbow and drew me forward. I swallowed, chucked it in, and watched it explode into a spurt of flame. I forgot to cross myself, watching hard to make sure it disappeared forever. Once I couldn’t tell my slip from the ashes I closed my eyes. Someone grabbed my hand. I jerked up, and saw it was Miguel.
They’d made a circle, and the girl beside me took my other hand. Lucy started the prayer. “Dear Heavenly Father, we are Yours. Help us to remember Your promise, and help us to trust in You.”
Such a short prayer, packed with all kinds of meaning. For one thing, what kind of promises had He made to me? Why would I trust Him? Why would He expect someone like me to trust Him, anyway? He probably knew better.
Lucy started another song, not a religious one, but one I’d heard on the oldies station. “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
I’d always liked that song, always liked pretending that maybe someday somebody would hold me up, help me out. Lately in my dreams it had been Jackson, or, if not Jackson, someone who looked and talked just like him, only not as popular. I looked across at Shannon and gave up on that idea. Besides, he might be nice enough to drag me to the meeting. He was nice to everyone, but that didn’t mean he cared.
The song ended and everyone trailed back inside. Miguel gave my hand a tug. I shook my head. “Aw, come on, Aidyn,” he said, but I ignored him, and he finally left me to join his friends. I’d wait until I was alone and make sure the lump that held all my fears had really been destroyed.
“What did you think of your first meeting?”
I hadn’t heard Lucy come back outside. I stared up at her. Tall, hair as dark and curly as mine, but she pulled it away from her face so she looked like a model. I pushed my glasses onto my nose, to remind myself they were there. “Um, yeah.” I realized I hadn’t answered her question. “I mean, I thought it was—”
“You put in a prayer.”
I hoped she wouldn’t ask what it had been.
She didn’t. “I’m glad.” She smiled, but as her gaze followed the traffic speeding past, her smile faded. “Some people, they feel funny about joining in right away. Especially something like this. I was afraid you’d be put off, me talking about how people don’t have enough faith.” She looked back at me, biting her lip. “But we all can use more, you know?”
I glanced through the doors at the rest of the kids. No one seemed to notice Lucy out here with the intruder and the smoke.
“You OK?” she asked.
“Sure.” I hesitated before I blurted, “I thought it was a joke.”
“What? Our prayer service? We don’t always burn them, you know.”
“No, not because of that. Some guys were messing around, talking about dates and stuff.”
She smiled again and I returned it, glad I hadn’t made her mad. “Maybe that’s what’s important to them. Or maybe they said that, and wrote something different. You never know what’s going on in someone else’s head.” She tipped hers to study me. “And we’ve all got problems.”
“No kidding.”
She reached for me and I realized she heard my bitter pain. I hate giving anything away. “I gotta go. My mom—”